1816, the first road from Buffalo to Jamestown ran by his place on the flats west of Thatcher Brook. This road came through Taylor Hollow and down over Clay Hill (Hospital Hill) somewhat west of the present road on the Hill, and cut across the flats to the Cattaraugus at a point a little north of where the Gowanda School house now stands. Here it· was necessary to ford the creek in summer or cross on a temporary ice bridge in winter.

In Spring and Fall, boats ferried the travelers across the turbulent waters. From here the road followed the creek to Waterman's tavern, thence southward up Maltbie's Hill over the , upper Dayton Road to Dayton on to Jamestown. (Maltbie Hill has also been known as Sisson Hill in past years.)

Most of the early settlers came from eastern New York State, from Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The route generally taken was through the Mohawk Valley, to Utica, Canandaigua, Avon, Batavia and Buffalo, where the pioneers then came over the Buffalo-) amestown route. Another trail turned off the main route at the Genesee River and from there through Pike, Arcade, Springville, and Zoar to Hidi, thence

down Water Street to Waterman's tavern. (A great deal of upper Water Street as it then existed has since been washed out by the erosion of the Cattaraugus.)

For many years, Water Street was the main thoroughfare in town and over its deep rutted surface passed the ox-teams and covered wagons which held the entire family with all their earthly possessions. The men were on foot or on horseback, but they all had the vision of rich new lands, new homes and freedom.

A famous ''spot'' in those days was the Hill Tavern at Zoar, opened by Samuel Hill in 1815 and continued for thirty years. Venison and bear meat were its ''specialties." But don't look for it today, because the Cattaraugus now flows over the bank where it stood.

Thatcher Brook gained its name from John Thatcher who settled near Dayton Valley in 1816. Nathaniel Whitcomb came to Hidi in 1817 from Vermont. Jacob Balcom, who brought his family to Hidi in 181 7, moved the next year to the land known as Darby Flats, two miles above Hidi. 18 1 7 also was the

Page Fifteen

year of the first school at Hidi, first taught by Enoch Frye of Concord. An itinerant Freewill Baptist minister, the Rev. Elnathan Finch, visited the district as early as 1815 and held meetings from house to house.

Turner Aldrich had a grist mill in operation near his brush dam in 18 1 7 . It drew trade from a radius of thirty miles. To bring their grain to the mill, the farmers had to follow the old Indian trails through dense forests. This meant hitching one ox ahead of the other. It took fortitude to exist in Western New York those days, but Gowanda's early settlers certainly had it!

''Uncle Dan'' Allen was elected supervisor of Perrysburg in 1819. Colonel Waterman pened the first post office in 1820 and was the first postmaster. This also was the year of the irst cemetery. Ruth Aldrich, mother of Turner Aldrich, died and was buried on a knoll west of uffalo Street near the present Seneca Street. The second burial was Noble Weller, a young schoolmaster who died with typhoid. The cemetery thus started served the villagers until 1833.

Gowanda in 1820 was a scattered yet vitally inter-dependent community of just about fifty people. It had no stores, no churches, no newspapers, no banks. The names of the families could be counted on two hands-Aldrich, Allen, Ackley, Adams, Camp, Dailey, Farnsworth, Harding, Stewart, Strang, Smith, Waterman, Wheeler, and Whitcomb.

There was little money or currency. The prevalent means of exchange was the simple one of barter. That, in fact, was largely true of the Gowanda district until the coming of the railroad in 1874. A hundred bushels of wheat might be "swapped'', depending upon the parties involved, for five firkins of butter.

But money, as we know it, was not essential in this simple "homespun'' community. Work was-and everyone knew it. There was no daylight saving to worry about then. It was primarily a matter of the survival of the fittest. But the pioneer work they had to do kept them fit: Disaster and distress was in store for them-but when it came they were ,fit to meet it. Those of us who live in the Gowanda lands today have every right to be proud of the heritage of work, faith and cooperation these early settlers bequeathed to us so plenteously.

Page Sixteen

A Village Emerges

EVERY community has its natural focal point. In Gowanda that point-for more than a century and a quarter-has been the bridge over the Cattaraugus. As you walk or ride across the present iron structure, all the personalities and episodes since 1820 repass with you.

Love has been made on that bridge, lifetime friendships formed there. Fire and waterdeath and disaster-have descended there. But so has new hope and new resolve come to Gowandians again and again as one new bridge replaced another. Thus, the bridge at Gowanda has been the rallying point for a . community that has always been deep rooted in the arts of perseverance.

The site of the first Gowanda bridge, built in 1820 by a "Mr. Barto", was about six rods above the bridge of today. Since it was constructed with a center abutment, supporting two fifty foot spans, it could not withstand the flood waters of the next spring freshet and the little group of hardy pioneers again tried to keep their chins up as they watched their first bridge break up and go downstream.

As an offset to the loss of that bridge the community had a new industry that year. chabod Harding and Ashel Camp, who had settled in Hidi in 1819, were ready in 1821 to stablish the first wool-carding and clothdressing "works'' in the district.

Page Seventeen